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I wanted so badly to lick my lips.They felt dry, like my throat.I didn’t want to think about what I’d left behind on the other side of the country.School was hard, but I’d studied harder and somehow made dean’s list my first semester.Work was work.Waiting tables in the diner close to campus paid the rent and put a few groceries in the fridge, but there wasn’t much left over for anything else.Time and money were precious commodities that I never seemed to have enough of.I was either in class, studying, or working.
And then there was my mom.
She was all I had because friends were not something I’d acquired over the years.When I was growing up, the other kids weren’t allowed to play with me because everyone knew what my mother was like.High school was awful because those same kids suddenly began to understand why their parents wouldn’t let them get close to me.
I was rarely called “Nishia” by my peers.No, if someone happened to ask another person who I was, they would simply answer, “That’s the girl whose mother is the junkie who works the corner.You don’t want to talk to her.She’s probably just like her mom.A walking STI case that not even a dose of penicillin will cure.”
I’d ignored them all, kept my head down, and worked my ass off.Those idiots didn’t matter.My goals were the only important things.
Get into college.
Get out of the neighborhood I’d grown up in.
Have a better life.
But my mom had stolen all of that from me.
CHAPTERFIVE
jack
I waiteduntil Nishia fell asleep before carefully untangling her fingers from around my hand and walking out of the room.Keeping the door cracked open so I could watch her, I lifted my phone to my ear.
Ben picked up on the second ring.“How is she?”
“Awake.Stubborn.”
“I understand stubborn,” the sheriff said then grunted, and I figured my cousin Lexa was close by.“She able to talk?”
“More than I anticipated,” I told him as I watched Nishia shift restlessly.“Even with the amount of pain she must be in, she refused the narcotics Sandoval has ordered for her as needed.Grab a pen and paper.I’ve got a few things for you to look into.”
I gave him a brief rundown of some of the things Nishia had been able to tell me about herself and what little she knew of how she’d ended up thousands of miles from home.But I didn’t give Ben everything.I trusted him, we all did, even though he was the law in Creswell Springs.But there were some details I wanted to discuss with Nova first.
My little cousin might be years younger than me, but she was basically the queen of NYC now that she’d married Ryan Vitucci.After her return from the dead, she’d quickly gotten hitched, and the rest of us had learned a few details about our sweet little Nova that finally made a hell of a lot of things make sense.
Like how she’s been able to survive against two hired killers who had been ordered to assassinate one of the Vituccis’ dearest family members.Nova had only been thirteen, but she’d killed those bastards.Since then, I’d watched her a little closer, but she’d made sure not to give another sign of the special skills Anya Vitucci had taught her.
Now that I knew how capable Nova was without Ryan’s bodyguards following her twenty-four seven, I wanted to ask her to look a little deeper into Nishia’s home life herself.
“Why the fuck would they drive her all the way across the country just to dump her right at Sanctuary’s door?”Ben mused, giving voice to one of the many questions swirling around in my own head.“That makes zero sense.That chip Dr.Sandoval pulled out of the girl’s arm was confirmed to be a tracker by forensics.It had GPS and a serial number.When I talked to Gian, he said it was something used by one of the biggest human trafficking rings to keep track of their stock.They could have driven straight up into Canada, easier on the East Coast than the West, or gone straight down to Mexico at any time during the drive across the country.Instead, they brought her to a women’s shelter?”
“Mmm,” I grunted.He didn’t say anything I hadn’t already wondered about myself
“There are a hundred different shelters from here to New York that I can name off the top of my head in any state, because your mom takes on some of their domestic violence victims who need to disappear.Nothing about this sits right with me, man.”
“Yeah, me either.But I’ve given you all the details she was able to tell me so far.See what you can do with that information, and get back to me as soon as you can.”
“Will do.And you keep me informed if she remembers anything else that might be useful.”
“Mmm,” I grunted again before hanging up.
Nova’s contact information was fifth on my most-recent list.I loved that girl to death, and we talked at least once a week.When we’d all thought she’d been killed by Sheena O’Brion, a piece of me had felt like it had died as well.Her funeral was the first time I could ever remember feeling the burn of tears.The first time I saw her after her miraculous return from the dead was the first time I’d ever cried in my entire life.
“Jack!”Nova’s sweet voice filled my ear, and my heart lifted with happiness despite all the other shit going on.“I get to talk to you twice in one week.That’s a new record, cuz.”
“It’s good to hear your voice, kid,” I muttered, leaning my head against the doorframe as I continued to watch Nishia.She was tossing what little her broken body would allow, and I needed to make this quick so I could get back to her.When I was with her, she seemed to sleep more peacefully.“Wish I were calling to chat, but I’m in need of a favor.”
“Just name it, and I’ll make it happen.”
